Child custody: Health insurance and health care for your child

Making sure your child has appropriate medical insurance and adequate health care is not something that you ever want to leave up to chance. However, if you don’t pinpoint what you and your ex-spouse’s responsibilities are when it comes to providing medical coverage, you may open the door for serious disagreements later. This often becomes problematic when parents dispute who owes what amount for health insurance or other medical expenses.

To make sure you and the other parent agree perfectly on these matters, consider including the following health care provisions in your child custody plan:

• One or both parents will obtain health insurance for their kids through an employer for a reasonable price.
• When no reasonably-priced health care plan is available via an employer, one or both parents will purchase or continue paying for private health insurance for their child.
• The parents will pay for health insurance costs via a 50/50 percentage split.
• Parents will both have a copy of the medical insurance card that belongs to the child.
• When it comes to the costs of medical care — including dental, vision, psychological and other health care — the parents will pay for that care respectively via a 50/50 percentage split.
• When a medical expense is incurred, the parent with access to the receipts and documentation will give it to the other parent within 30 days of receiving the bill.
• The parents will reimburse each other for the expenses owed, or pay their shares directly to the medical provider within 30 days of being notified of the bill.
• Child health care — whether it’s offered through insurance or not — has to receive both parents’ approval in writing if the expenses will exceed $100 for one of the parents.

Do the above parenting provisions seem reasonable to include in your child custody agreement? North Carolina parents and children could benefit tremendously from including these and other parenting provisions that cover important health insurance issues.

Source: Epperson Law PLLC, “Child custody,” accessed Oct. 13, 2017

 

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